It’s always been our goal to travel more for less and to show others how they can do the same.
One of the biggest misconceptions about travel is that international trips have to be expensive. While they certainly can be, they do not have to be if you know how to use the right tools and strategies.
For our upcoming weeklong trip, we’re on track to visit Taiwan for under $1,000including flights, accommodations, and spending money.
Here’s exactly how we’re doing it.
Flights
Delta has run some incredible SkyMiles flash sales to Asia and the Pacific. Destinations like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan occasionally show up at heavily discounted mileage rates. The tricky part about these flash sales is that Delta rarely promotes them directly, so they can be easy to miss unless you’re actively looking for them.
Because of this, I have a Google Alert set up for “Delta SkyMiles flash sale” so I can be notified when something interesting appears.
In this case, I received an alert originating from Thrifty Traveler highlighting a Delta flash sale to Taipei Taiwan. The advertised price was just 25,000 SkyMiles round-trip in Basic Economy for a handful of weeks in the fall.
This particular flash sale also included South Korea for roughly 30,000 SkyMiles round-trip and Australia for slightly more, both of which are excellent deals from Salt Lake City.
Since we were looking for a trip for just the three of us, my wife, our toddler, and me, this deal was exactly what we wanted.
We decided to book Main Cabin instead of Basic Economy so we could select seats and maintain additional flexibility.
Our total came to:
- 112,200 SkyMiles (Transferred from American Express)
- $135.09 in taxes and fees
Considering cash prices can be upwards of $1,000 per ticket, we were pretty happy with the redemption. Check out my post on booking these flights.
Running Trip Total: $135.09
Airbnb
Airbnb is one of the hardest parts of travel to “hack.”
There are no airline transfer partners, no award charts, and no points redemptions. Most of the time, you simply pay cash.
Fortunately, Taiwan is fairly affordable, and we found a six-night Airbnb that gives us and our toddler separate sleeping rooms while keeping us close to the action and public transportation.
The original cost was $587.
Using a combination of Airbnb gift cards, credit card credits, shopping portal rewards, and a few other tricks, we’ve reduced that cost significantly. At the time of writing, we’re on track to bring the final cost down to roughly $240.
It’s worth noting that some of these savings came from credit card perks tied to cards with annual fees. Those credits are not “free money,” and they only make sense if the cards already fit your spending habits and travel goals. In our case, these are cards we already use heavily for travel, so maximizing the built-in credits helps offset costs we would otherwise pay anyway.
I wrote a full breakdown explaining exactly how we’re doing that.
Running Trip Total: $375.09
Spending
Food, transportation, and activities are always the hardest costs to predict when planning a trip. No matter how cheap the flights are or how much you save on accommodations, you’re still going to spend money once you arrive.
One way we’ve helped offset those costs is through a bank account sign-up bonus.
Earlier this year, Capital One offered a promotion for its 360 Checking account. The offer required opening a new account and then completing 20 purchases of $10 or more within the first three months. This was quite easy with the spending we would’ve been doing anyway. In return, we earned a $250 cash bonus deposited in our account after the requirements were met.
This worked out especially well because we often use our Capital One 360 debit card for foreign ATM withdrawals since it has no foreign transaction or ATM fees.
Unfortunately, this particular offer is no longer available, but banks regularly run similar promotions throughout the year. If you’re interested, check out this Doctor of Credit guide to current bank account bonuses and see what’s available.
Because the $250 bonus came from the spending we were already doing, and went directly to our needed ATM travel money, we view it as reducing the overall cost of the trip.
Running Trip Total: $375.09
Capital One Bonus: -$250.00
Net Trip Cost: $125.09
Final Thoughts
Of course, we’ll still spend money while we’re in Taiwan. Meals, transportation, and activities aren’t free. But with flights and accommodations essentially covered, we’re landing in Taiwan with a net out-of-pocket cost of roughly $125. That gives us plenty of room to stay comfortably under our $1,000 goal.
Not every strategy in this post will work for everyone, and some of them are admittedly a little niche. That’s part of the fun of this hobby. Everyone pieces things together differently based on the cards they have, the offers available, and the kind of travel they prioritize.
At the end of the day, the goal of this post is the same as always: to show that travel does not have to be outrageously expensive. With a little flexibility and creativity, trips that once felt unrealistic can become surprisingly attainable.
We’ll share a follow-up after the trip with our final costs and everything we learned along the way.